1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?
Our media product uses and develops the same conventions of real media products, we do not challenge but rather mimic them. We did this so that our product seems more realistic and convincing. Our media product is of a horror genre so we inflict the same elements as other originally horror films, such as Hostage, Kill Bill, Halloween and Scream.
In our production we have two main characters the male protagonist who is the mentally disturbed villain and the damsel in distress, the female victim. In real horror films the male villain is usually one who comes from a horrid/isolated background/childhood or one who has some sort of illness, like the serial killer in Halloween. The villain’s identity is usually hidden from the audience and victim example when Jason X uses a mask to cover up his face, their activities take place in the middle of no-where, were there is no means of communication with the outside world or a place most unexpected or even somewhere that holds a memory of their past. Our production mimic’s this perfectly as we do not show our villain face instead we display his actions and whereabouts. Our damsel in distress is also one of a typically horror film implication, as we show our victim covered in blood and completely unable to be part of her own rescue, she’s tied up and duck taped.
The props we used are similar to those in real horror films such as, duck tape, blood, rope the same props used in the movie Hostage. These items are usually used to harm the victim or take away their freedom. We also used fake blood.
In horror films the music is never one that is satisfying or pleasing to the ear instead it is one full of suspense, curiosity and danger. With this in mind we based our music upon a dramatic feel, the audience will automatically know this is a horror film indicating our development towards a real media product.
Schizoid the name of our media product plays a significant role in showing the development towards the conventions of a real horror film. Horror film titles usually have one word that defines the movie as a whole example Saw, Insidious, Scream we decided to name ours Schizoid - the illness our villain suffers from.
The text and flow of our production is very steady and plain, our background is black whilst our text is white with no shadow or movement, and this portrays the mind of our villain who shows no remorse or emotions. In between our text we see images of our female victim focusing on the fear in her eyes, with our music playing in the background it gives of the vibe that such movies like Scream and Saw.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media products represent two particular social groups, those who suffer from a mental disorder and female victims. We represent a minority social group who society usually tends to turn a blind eye to those who suffer from schizophrenia. In media products they are usually represented as murderers or dangerous mental cases who seek out to bring nothing but pain to their victims without showing any signs/source of remorse for the pain they conflict.
In our Media product we don’t actually show the kidnapper. Instead we show the female hostage. We represent him through the dramatic music we play throughout the clip which portrays his state of mind and also through his actions, which lead us to our other social group that we represent in our sequence female victims.
For a very long time females always been portrayed as the damsels in distress. Women were seen as a weaker figure decades ago and these are sometimes still seen within films, especially horror films (Scream and When A Stranger Calls). It is usually a male figure that saves the day.
We decided to go along with this representation, because it is well known and very popular. Through our clip we showed a woman tied up in what looked like an abandoned building, you can see through her eyes that she is not aware at first of her surroundings and is horrified with the situation that she has found herself in. She has scratches and blood on her face to suggest that force was used and she is there against her own will. She starts to scream to get some attention - which is what a lot of people who find themselves in similar situation do - from anyone or anything.
My group and I already knew that we wanted to make a horror film. Whilst researching we found out that Lionsgate, a popular distribution company, distributed a lot of horror films or related films, such as Saw, My Bloody Valentine and The Descent. So we thought they would be the ideal company to distribute our film, Schizoid. We searched YouTube for an intro and we found the perfect one, it was a horror version of the Lionsgate intro.
Lionsgate is an established company, so a lot of our audience could relate to the type of film we are trying to make. It is the most commercially successful independent film and television distribution company in North America.
4. Who would be the audience of your media product?
Our target audience is 18 year olds and over who enjoy watching horror and thriller films, but more recently the genre has been associated with teens and young adults. Horror and thriller films tend to have more of a younger cast, this is where most of their fans come from. The audience can relate to the characters onscreen.
My group and I watched several opening scenes of films that were once considered horror, but are now considered thrillers, such as Se7en and Psycho, while The Ring and Saw films are thought to be horror now. Horror films have certain qualities that they all share without being the same film, such being based on a person's nightmare or worst fear or it may have serial killers included. By keeping to the same guideline as the other film in their genre, the filmmakers will already have an audience because of the success of previous films.
Friends on a night out, couples and certain individuals who enjoy the thrill would come and see our film.
Recently I watched the newly released film, Scre4m, and I thought one of the characters from the film would be the ideal audience for our film. Kirby Reed is a teenager in Woodsboro, student at Woodsboro High School. She is friends with Jill Roberts and Olivia Morris and is an avid fan of the horror genre. She is a popular, outgoing girl who enjoys hanging out with her friends. She also enjoys staying at home and watching films from her wide and extensive range of her horror film collection. She loves attending film marathons.
This is a link to a clip to Scre4m where Kirby is asked various questions on her wide knowledge of horror films:
[PICTURE OF KIRBY]
5. How did you attract/address you audience?
We started our opening sequence with a clip from Youtube of a Lionsgate opening, instead of using the original we chose the horror version because it worked better with our horror based film - it was much darker. This gradually fades out of the screen to a title card which has the film title, Schizoid, placed in the middle of the page, with the spelled pronunciation underneath. The next title has the film title in the position as the previous but this time with a definitions and synonyms underneath. I got idea from the popular television series The Mentalist because that is how they open their show and I thought it was a really good concept. The ratings for the show The Mentalist have proven to be very successful which means a lot of people watch the show. So when watching our opening sequence they would recognise the structure of the title frames and relate to it.
After that it goes to a shot of Monet whimpering alone, you can not tell where she is or if she's with anyone. We got this idea from Kill Bill, we thought it worked really well because people would instantly become captivated with the whereabouts of Monet and how she go there. We cut the scenes up by adding title frames between the shots to create suspense and build some tension.
The music we chose was tense and suspicious. We kept the colour scheme simple with black and white. We didn't use many effects or colours and animations because we wanted to keep the audiences attention on the video footage.
The footage is strong enough with the music to be engaging.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The editing of our title sequence was done on the MAC computers provided to us by our college. Initially we found the MAC computer difficult to use, because we are all accustomed to PC’s. However with time we all grew confident and now simple tasks like copying and pasting pictures from the Internet doesn’t challenge us anymore.
Using the MAC we did find that more technologies were provided to us like the editing software Adobe Premier Pro, iTunes and livewire. Adobe was very easy to use, but we did learn how to add still shots, and how to fade in out between shots, how to cut a shot into two separate shots. We learnt how to add sound, how to minimise and increase the sound from the camera at different intervals.
Overall, technologies played the biggest part within our work. Without any of the technologies we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish anything near to what we have produced.
The technologies that we used:
- a video camera
- a tripod
- sound equipment
- MAC computer
- Blackberry Curve
The software technologies we used:
- Adobe Premier Pro.: We used this site to edit our entire title sequence
- Google: Most of our planning a research was done one Google, and also our photo imports were from Google.
- iTunes: After I downloaded the music, we imported them unto the system via itunes.
- dafont.com: We downloaded different styles of text from the website but then later on decided that they didn’t work with the title sequence.
- Blogger: This is where all our work/ planning is.
- Livewire: Some of the effects on text on our title sequence was done via livewire.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The editing process was more difficult than we thought it would be. Some things weren't consistent which meant that for the actual sequence we limited the dialogue and the dialogue that we did have was scripted to avoid all inconsistency. In our preliminary task the lighting changes half way through the video. In our actual sequence we repeated all recorded scenes minimum twice so that we had a choice to choose the best take. Also when it came to the props we used, we had trouble keeping them in the same place throughout the scene. At times the position of the bag changes or the moment the door closes doesn't synchronise with the sound of the door closing in within the scene. So for our actual task we brought duck tape along with us so that we were able to mark (if any) any places where things needed to be placed to keep the sequence consistent.
[SCREENSHOT]
We learnt how to use the camera and keeping it steady was sometimes difficult. we found it challenging to film a tracking shot of just the actors feet as the tripod wouldn't go low enough, We decided to shoot it hand held and it eventually came out steady. We learnt how to use the night-mode effect on the final task and we also learnt how to set up the tripod and attach the camera onto it. All of these things we learnt contributed to the efficient recording of our final title sequence. If we didn't know all of these things our group would have struggled more than we initially did, meaning we would have spent more time than necessary.
When it came to editing, some of our group had some prior knowledge of how to use some of the tools and the software, so the editing process was very quick and not too stressful.
We learnt how to cut scenes and how to use the razor blade tool on premier plus pro. At first my group actually found it difficult to use MACs because we normally use PC's however we are now very confident in using MAC's now and the software they provide.
Doing the preliminary task ensured that the mistakes we made before wouldn't occur again because we learnt from our mistakes.
